You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
Safe-sex Public Service Announcement
The Promotion:
***(WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK)***
The Pitch:
… though, if we’re being honest, this is only, like, the fourth worst thing to happen to the Evangelion characters.
This ad is a bit off the usual trail for Ad Space. Not only is it a radio ad rather than a TV commercial, but it’s a radio ad that never even aired. It was recorded in the late 90’s, then sat unused on a cassette tape in someone’s basement for twenty years. Yet, it became quite the infamous ad during that time, all because of one thing: Neon Genesis Evangelion.
If you haven’t seen that anime series – or, more specifically, if you haven’t seen the English dub produced by ADV Films (which is different from the English dub Netflix commissioned a few years ago) – some background info is in order.
In the ADV dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Spike Spencer voiced the lead character Shinji Ikari, while Tiffany Grant voiced Asuka Langley Soryu, a co-protagonist and … I won’t say “love interest”, but definitely someone with whom Shinji had complicated and sometimes disturbing sexual tension. And it’s Spencer and Grant you hear in this radio spot, doing pretty much the same voices they used for Evangelion, as they simulate two people having sex.
Perhaps you can understand why, even when no one outside of a Houston recording studio had ever heard this radio spot, rumors of its existence sparked amusement and intrigue among the Evangelion fandom.
The ad went unused back in the day because, ironically, the voice actors fulfilled the assignment a bit too well, and their sex noises were deemed too sexual to put on the radio. It might have slipped away into the mists of history, if not for a loose lipped DVD commentary, a voice actor with a cluttered basement and a good sense of humor, and one enterprising YouTuber. For more of the history behind this ad and how it eventually saw the light of day, watch here: